Job 33:4

Elihu did not take the proud, unfeeling attitude that Job's three friends took. He speaks with simple humility, asking Job to hear and consider what he says (v.1). He claims that his words come from his heart and speak pure knowledge (vv.2-3). He says this because he knows that the Spirit of God has made him, and the breath (or Spirit) of the Almighty gives him life... This should be true of anyone who speaks for God.

So in the opening verses of Job 33, we find him making two claims. First, he claims that his words will show uprightness and purity, as fits a man who has his being and life from God. Second, that though he would speak on God's behalf, he himself was a man, "formed of the clay," just as Job was.

"The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life" (Job 33:4). God the Creator is almighty, omnipotent. None but Him can call into being. So crediting creation to the Holy Spirit teaches in the strongest way both His personality and His Deity.

Here is an essential difference between man and the beast below him. By God's in-breathing, man has what the beast does not. So Elihu's claim stands. His promise that his lips will speak knowledge clearly points back to the original creation: "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life." Elsewhere Scripture shows plainly what the breath of the Almighty gave to man that sets him apart from the beast. It is the "spirit of man which is in him," and by which alone he knows the things of a man (1 Cor. 2:11).

Man, and man alone, received the breath of the LORD God... This is why man alone stands in direct moral responsibility to God. He must give account for the things done in the body to that God who gave him his soul and spirit.

This great act stands good not only for Adam, the first man, but also for all his race. So in the book of Job we find Elihu saying, "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life" (Job 33:4). We all can say the same today. What marks man out is the spirit the Almighty breathed into him. This act also defined man's relation with his Creator. God is a Spirit. So man, who has spirit by God's in-breathing, was suited to represent Him, made in His image, after His likeness.

Elihu then came forward: he is a type of Christ as mediator, and spoke on God's behalf. He said, "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life" (Job 33:4)... He spoke of God's dealings with mankind. He told how God speaks to man, even in dreams, to teach him. And if there is an interpreter, one among a thousand, who can show a man how his soul can stand in truth before God, that man may escape going down to the pit, for God has found a ransom.